Are you excellent?

Good Afternoon!

I just came back from retreat this afternoon and came straight to the internet to catch up on my life. I have had a little to much thinking time and needed to get back in contact with some people other than my roommates :)! We had our retreat in Berbice starting on saturday and finishing this afternoon.

Before I get into my talk about what happened at retreat I guess that I have a few things to share from the week before.

Last saturday was my good friend Joel's birthday, he made some amazing chicken and we all had a grand time hanging out in his yard eating good food and enjoying the night. He is one person that I don't talk to very often but whenever we do talk we have a great conversation. I love meeting people who are free of judgement and loving no matter who you are. I am very thankful for his friendship! :)

This week the Sisters of Mercy had a sister from the states here who was giving two different talks on women in the bible. The first one was about Mary of Magdala and the second was of Mary, the mother of God. I really enjoyed both talks a lot especially because she really helped to show us the common misconceptions about Mary of Magdala which I could write about but that would take me a whole week. :) One of the things that she did talk about was what made someone excellent. There are three qualifications someone has to have in order to be excellent:

1. What you say and what you do must be the same.

You can't just be a person who says you will do something and not carry it out.

2. You must be willing to endure hardships

If you don't understand suffering or don't accepting suffering well you aren't putting your best foot forward. Everyone will encounter suffering in our lives and how we respond to it shows a lot about who we really are.

3. Your outreach is to everyone

Jesus didn't say love everyone except.... No Jesus said love everyone. Simple.

This little lesson really made me evaluate my own life. Could I consider myself an excellent person? Do I talk about helping people and follow through? I feel like these are a set of questions that I should be constantly asking my self because an excellent person is always trying to make themselves better and not just stagnate.

I've spent a lot of time thinking about having an outreach that is to everyone. So often in life we have labels that bind us. If someone is a democrat or a republican we judge them in a certain light according to our own political convictions. If someone is very quiet we may label them as quiet and not allow ourselves to see the other good qualities they have because we have already put them into one category. For example my roommate Meg is often called quiet but if you take the time to listen to her she has some really great things to say. I feel like many people in life will miss out on the wisdom of Meg because they label her and don't take the time to see her other good qualities.

The thing is - Meg is just an example but this will happen over and over again with so many people in our lives. I talk about judging so much because I see myself judging and am constantly trying to work on eliminating it. I've never been born anywhere else, or raised by anyone else yet in my mind I always think I know what is best. The battle never ends. Oh wait, Let me rephrase that, the battle never ends in this life. :)

This week I had a patient that I found myself especially drawn to. His medications were all messed up and we spent about an hour trying to figure out what we were going to do to help him in the best way. When other people were running around figuring things out him and I sat in my office talking about his work. He began to tell me how although he mostly works construction he also minds ducks. I started to ask him a million questions about what he does with the ducks and how he takes care of them. He was telling me how when it gets close to dark all the ducks come up to the pen and let themselves in for the night. I was surprised that he didn't have to round up the ducks but they just went right to same place. They know where it is safe and they always return to safety. We started talking about how sometimes his boss wanted him to work late but he always said he had to go home to mind his ducks. He was telling me about what is the point of minding ducks if you can't take good care of them. You have to take care of the things that you are in charge of.

This situation made me smile in a lot of ways. One because back home at our cabin we always feed the ducks that come around in the summer and anything about ducks always reminds me of life back home. Second because my patient was teaching me a lesson about not taking on more than we can handle. Why have a responsibility that we can't take care of. He understands that it's important for him to mind the ducks because it's his task. I can't complete a million tasks and I can't help a million people but I can help one. So he must take care of his ducks and I must try my best to help him. Not to help every patient in that hospital or everyone I walk across but the rather the people that are brought to me.

Whatsoever you do to the least of my people that you do unto me.

This quote brings me back to my retreat this weekend. We had our retreat in New Amsterdam, Berbice. We left on Saturday and got to spend the day in a hotel. It was one big room with a king bed, a full bed, and a little twin bed. I of course chose the tiny twin bed because I always sleep in a little ball anyway. :) We had a couch, air conditioning and a HOT shower. I was amazed by the hot shower this weekend. Ever since January I have become really sick of cold showers. I just don't want any more cold showers. Anyway we hung out on Saturday and then went over to the church to do some praying. I laid down on a pew to pray a divine mercy chaplet and all of a sudden I saw a man walking past me to go and get a ladder they were using to do construction on the church. I thought that about five minutes had passed by and when I asked Audrey what time it was she told me that an hour had gone by. So instead of spending a holy hour praying, I spent a holy hour sleeping. Sister Julie did say sleep was an important part of a retreat! Opps!

Saturday night we were all asleep by 9:30 because we were just simply exhausted. We got up early on Sunday morning to go down to the church because we were going on a pilgrimage into an area called Black Bush. It is the same area that I went to early in the year to go to a Hindu wedding. It is a farming area with basically trees and rice fields. Very remote and beautiful. We had an hour long drive to the pilgrimage spot where we got out and walked to the church. We held different signs which had the fruits of the Holy Spirit. (Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control) Some of them had virtues too - Mine said Knowledge. My roommates all laughed at me when they handed it to me and said that I got one that actually fit! :) When we got to the church it was good but SO HOT. It was hard for me to pay attention to the two hour long Mass when all I wanted to do was get out of that hot building. I guess that I learned some patience. After communion I felt like I was going to pass out so I ended up going outside until Mass was over. Too much heat for me. After Mass we all went back to the church (in New Amsterdam) and instead of spending the night at the hotel we were staying at the retreat building behind the church this time. It's a really high building so there is a really great breeze. We all showered and took afternoon naps until it was time for dinner. After dinner we spent the night bonding and doing different spiritual activities. It was a night of praying and laughing I would say.

This morning we woke up and went next door to the church where the Mother Teresa sisters live. They run a home for elderly men, a soup kitchen, and a day care. One of the sisters gave us a tour of the place and then brought us to the day care for us to interact with the children. It was a fun morning as the teacher had the students sing songs for us. After that we helped to feed them lunch and put them down for naps. It's not unusual for us to run into the Missionaries of Charity but it was good for once to actually really see what they do. They are such holy and faithful women. They give me encouragement in my own ministry. Also visiting them was on my bucket list of things to do before I leave Guyana so I guess I can cross another thing off.

Well it's back to work tomorrow and I have to go home and do some prep work for school tomorrow. I'm looking forward to seeing my students tomorrow because I know they will always make me smile.

Love and prayers,

Ashley Ann